One of the jabs atheists make towards Christians is that our religion is all wishful thinking.

They like to blame us for believing in "a sugar daddy in the sky"–a kind of invisible Santa Claus who is going to make everything okay one day. When we die we’ll all go to a happy family reunion and all the nasty stuff will go away. If we hold on tight for a few years here, we’ll just go upstairs for the big party.

We are also supposed to believe in a God who answers prayers here below and gives us goodies if we’re good. They imagine that we believe God is like a great big vending machine. We put our prayer in the slot at the top and the candy pops out into the tray in the bottom.

I’m afraid there probably are some Christians who have such a facile, childish, superstitious view of God and their religion, and Protestant Christianity has often sold this sappy, sentimental “pie in the sky when you die” version of the faith.

But Catholicism is more robust. We believe that sometimes God doesn’t give us candy. He gives us our vegetables and expects us to eat them in order to make us stronger, and when we die we don’t all expect to fly straight to heaven for the eternal family reunion. We go to a place called purgatory where we have to finish our greens, do our homework, pay for our misdeeds, breathe a sigh of sorrowful relief that we didn’t go down below, and continue to look upward for the day when we do pass through to heavenly bliss.

Even this more common sense and tough understanding of the afterlife  is dismissed as silly wishful thinking.

But is it really?

There are two problems with calling the Catholic view "wishful thinking." First of all, Jesus calls me to give up everything I have (Lk 14:23), be prepared to break with my family (Lk 14:25-27), and eventually take up my cross and follow him (Lk 9:23). This is the cost of being his disciple. This is not exactly what I would have wished for had I been engaged in a daydream of wishful thinking.

Secondly, it seems to me that it is the atheist who is the wishful thinker. Faced with the universal human belief in an afterlife he looks away. Faced with the possibility that there might just be a final judgement in which he will have to give account of himself, he denies heartily that such a thing will happen.

“There is no God. There is no heaven. There is no hell. When you die you simply cease to exist.”

Now this sounds like some very serious wishful thinking because if his wish comes true, then he can live as he wishes and never has to pay the cab fare. He gets a free ride.

It is the atheist, therefore, who really thinks there will be pie in the sky when he dies, but his version of pie in the sky is a happy oblivion. It is simply going to sleep and not waking up.

Is it not in fact, simply his version of the “rest eternal” he accuses Christians of wishing for?

The possibilities of Hell and eternal torment are certainly frightening. Considering that practically every culture and religion across the world, and down the ages, have believed in the underworld and the possibility of going there, isn’t the atheist’s thinking not only more wishful, but dangerously wishful?

Many atheists identify as rational, sensible, scientific, and careful, but given the possibility that there just might be a Heaven, Hell and judgement, isn’t it the believer who is, in fact, the sensible fellow?

He may be engaged in wishful thinking, or then he may simply be playing his cards right and placing his money (and his life) on a common sense bet.
 
 
Article originally appeared at Standing On My Head. Used with permission.

In his apostolic exhortation, The Joy of the Gospel, Pope Francis beckoned Catholics to proudly bring the good news of Catholicism to as many who will listen. He did not call upon Catholics to be callous salesmen, or to triumphantly wear their religion on their sleeves; rather, he asked them to challenge the “sec­ularist rationalism” and the radical individualism that it entails. To be successful, we must provide an alternative, and there is no better tonic for our age than the good news that Catholicism offers. That is why the Holy Father exhorted us not to allow the Church to be reduced to “the sphere of the private and the personal.” He wants a public, full-throated exercise of religion.¹ There is much to Catholicism that needs to be trumpeted.

The greatest joy that Catholicism offers is the prospect of achieving salvation; its teachings provide a veritable road map to heaven. There are other benefits, as well, residual rewards such as good health and happiness. All total, Catholicism offers the best guide to achieving health, happiness, and heaven.

“Americans who are the most religious have the highest wellbeing” (his emphasis). That is the principal conclusion that Gallup editor in chief Frank Newport came to in his book God Is Alive and Well.² He is not alone in this finding. Importantly, not only are the most religious the most likely to be healthy and happy; there is an impressive body of research on priests and nuns, particularly on cloistered nuns, that shows just how true this finding is. While much of the data on religion and well-being are true for those across religions, and are not unique to Catholics, this book focuses on the ways Catholicism impacts well-being.

It is not as though the clergy and the religious steer their lives to achieve health and happiness—their mission, and their actions, are oriented toward serving God and serving those in need—but there are certain positive by-products to their efforts. And when it comes to reaching heaven, even atheists will concede that altruistic behaviors and charitable giving are promising signs; very religious people, studies show, are the most likely to be altruistic and charitable.

It is not hard to come by evidence that shows religion to be integrally tied to well-being and self-giving, but attempts to explain why are sorely lacking. The purpose of this book is to examine what I call the Three B’s of Catholicism—beliefs, boundaries, and bonds—which in turn leads to achieving the Three H’s—health, happiness, and heaven. Its central contention is profoundly countercultural: It is not the abandonment of constraint that liberates; it is its rational embrace. What we get in return—it is quite a dividend—is the greater likelihood of realizing the Three H’s. By contrast, the dominant culture, which is increasingly materialistic, casts limitations on behavior as being suspect at best, and nefarious at worst. What that vision yields, however, is not at all endearing. The evidence is decisive: when it comes to the attainment of health, happiness, and heaven, there is a clear Catholic advantage.

“Many religions,” Newport writes, “either explicitly or implicitly promote norms of behavior that are in turn associated with higher wellbeing and healthy behaviors.”³ Newport and I are both sociologists, so when we refer to “higher wellbeing” we are speaking about an overall sense of satisfaction that people have with their lives; we are not talking about some Platonic state. The term “healthy behaviors” refers to conduct that is associated with living longer, and to lifestyle choices that are not destructive to our physical or mental condition.

Beliefs and bonds are tied to these outcomes, but it is the role of boundaries that matters most in this regard: those who see boundaries as stifling are more likely to engage in risky behaviors, making for unhealthy and unhappy outcomes. Those who greet every limitation on their freedom as an unfair burden are the most likely to break norms—the rules of society that are commonly agreed to as a condition of civility. This is as unhealthy for the individual as it is destructive to society. For example, whether the behavior is driving too fast, or taking drugs, the social price tag is high. Fortunately, our Judeo-Christian heritage has many resources to draw on; the wisdom inherent in the Ten Commandments, for instance, cannot be surpassed. Add to this the bountiful resources that Catholicism has to offer—it has explicit teachings on the necessity of maintaining boundaries—and the result is a veritable guide to good living.

Newport stresses the importance of belief. “Religions by definition include a belief in God or a higher power: That belief can provide comfort, surcease from sorrow, and inner spiritual calmness.”⁴ Those who are not religious have never been able to find a secular counterpart to the role religion plays in dealing with adversity. There is a reason why the old adage “There is no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole” is commonly cited: there is much truth to it. Of course, even the faithful have been known to surge toward God when they are crying out for help, so this phenomenon is hardly unique to nonbelievers. But at least believers have something palpable to repair to when crisis strikes.

“Active participation in a religious community provides individuals with friends, fellow worshippers, social networks, and social support,” Newport writes.⁵ This explanation shows the importance of bonds. Another ancient proverb, “No man is an island,” carries great truth: God did not mean for us to be alone. The physical and mental benefits that accrue from enmeshing ourselves in communities are formidable. Religious communities, more than others, provide a steady and reliable network of social relationships that its participants can draw on—they act as a buffer to adversity. In this regard, the communal appeal of Catholicism is central. It is indeed illustrative of the fact that bonds matter: they matter especially for the achievement of health and happiness.

Those who are religious vary considerably in the intensity of their convictions; they range from the serious-minded to the lukewarm. At the other end of the spectrum are agnostics and atheists. Agnostics are not certain whether God exists; atheists are sure he doesn’t. Then there are those who do not practice any religion, but who nonetheless fail to identify with agnostics or atheists.

While there are important differences between these three sec­tors, they all share a secular vision: they believe that the best so­ciety is one that strongly limits the role of religion. By definition, they are the least likely to embrace the first of the Three B’s, namely beliefs. Less obvious is their comparatively weak commitment to bonds and boundaries. This will be explained in detail; it has much to do with their penchant for individualism. Consequently, as we shall see, they are also the least likely to achieve the Three H’s.

Therefore, two models will be presented: the Catholic vision and the secular vision. But we need to illustrate these models with personal examples. The examples chosen reflect “ideal types.” The great sociologist Max Weber devised this methodological tool so that comparisons could be made. By ideal he did not mean the best; he simply meant that the subject matter under discussion would be presented in its purest, and most accentuated, form. It is with this understanding that saints, priests, and nuns are being presented as the Catholic model. This does not mean that all the saints were walking pillars of purity; many were just the opposite in their early years. Nor does it mean that all priests and nuns have successfully embodied the teachings of Christ. It simply means that as a whole, when compared to other segments of society, they are a useful index of Catholicism in practice.

The secular model is best represented by intellectuals and Hollywood celebrities. Intellectuals are not a monolithic group: the ones under discussion in this book do not include the great theologians or contemporary scholars steeped in the Judeo-Christian tradition. The intellectuals that are illustrative of the secular model reflect a materialist worldview, as exemplified by Enlightenment writers. They reject traditional moral values, are disdainful of God, and are utopian in thought. Similarly, celebrities are not a uniform group: the ones depicted in this book are known for their hedonistic lives, hostility to conventional norms, and penchant for self-indulgence. While intellectuals and celebrities may seem to have little in common, the ones under consideration place a high value on individualism. For intellectuals, their individualism is manifested by their egotism; for celebrities, it is exhibited by their narcissism. In other words, they have practically nothing in common with saints, priests, and nuns.

The Catholic advantage over the secular model should not be interpreted as an argument against all matters secular. To be specific, the Founders crafted a secular government, one that has served us well. But they also cherished a strong religion-friendly culture. No contradiction there. Indeed, they knew that by crafting a secular form of government they would preempt the problems inherent in a theocratic state. But they also knew, as John Adams put it, that the Constitution was made “only for a moral and a religious people.”⁶ The secular model, as explained in this book, has nothing to do with our form of government—no one save extremists wants a theocracy—it has to do with religion’s devaluation.

Catholic beliefs stem from the realization that God matters; secularists hold that God does not matter. Bonds are important to Catholics, and indeed Catholicism’s communitarian elements are defining; on the other hand, secularism prizes individualism. Boundaries in Catholic thought are not inimical to freedom; for example, the imperative “Thou Shalt Not” is not reflexively seen as unfair or oppressive; secularists find boundaries constraining. By contrasting Catholicism and secularism on the Three B’s, we are able to see how their exercise affects the prospects of achieving the Three H’s.

Excerpted from The Catholic Advantage by Dr. William Donohue Copyright © 2015 by Dr. William Donohue. To be published by Image Books, a division of Penguin Random House, on March 3. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

NOTE: Over the past several months, we've had lots of combox discussion about how Catholics read and interpret the Bible. To help us all make sense of this question, we began a multi-part series on the topic. For the last several weeks, Mark Shea unpacked how Catholics authentically read the Bible. He began with a general introduction, then he outlined three specific guidelines. Next he launched into the three main spiritual senses (or lenses) through which Catholics interpret the Bible, focusing on the allegorical sense and the moral sense. Today, he wraps up the series with the anagogical sense.

Bound up with the biblical understanding of God from the get-go is the conviction (one almost wants to call it the foregone conclusion) that God knows the future.

This isn’t always necessarily the case with those delightful works of pagan imagination called “the gods”. In some pagan myths, one gets the impression that the gods are as clueless about the various twists and turns of the story as the human actors and are struggling to keep up just as much as we mortals are.

But in Scripture, though God is acting and reacting to the choices made by His creatures, it is not so much stated as taken for granted that God also knows everything, including the future. The “testing” of people like Abraham that periodically occurs is done, not because God is wondering how the lab rats will respond to the stress test, but in order to purify and/or show the creature what he is made of. Similarly, though God periodically “changes His mind” in response to some impassioned intercession from Moses or Jonah, the sense is always that this is a case of the prophet chasing God till God catches him. Down deep, we know the author believes God is sovereign and in charge of the whole story.

And so, early on, God is constantly telling the future through His prophets with no sense from the author that this needs an explanation. Rather, as revelation proceeds, the prophets simply become more and more emphatic that God knows (and determines) the end from the beginning. And He often does so in a way that blithely breezes past questions which we plodding humans are still squabbling about. For instance, our entire culture is (still!) consumed with the tedious debate about design vs. chance. In 1 Kings 22 we learn that God has ordained that Ahab be killed in battle as punishment for his wickedness. Yet the whole thing turns on God’s knowledge that Ahab is so full of himself he will march straight into folly with both eyes open. And the crowning irony is that the archer who slays Ahab is described as having drawn his bow “at random”. So was the death of Ahab due to divine design, human choice or random chance? The answer appears to be “yes”.

Given this great ease with mystery, it’s not a surprise that Scripture is open to the fact of prophecy, including good old-fashioned “predict the future” kind. An all-knowing God who doesn’t know the end from the beginning seems to have hardly been worth considering for ancient Jews. Indeed, it has taken modernity great intellectual pains to train itself into believing in the God of Process Theology, who is eating popcorn on the cosmic sofa and wondering as much as you or me how it’s all going to end. The God of the Bible, in contrast, is the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end, Who was and Who is and Who is to come.

Because of this, the Jews basically invented (and then handed to Christians) a conception of time that was as unique in antiquity as it is taken for granted today: that is, the notion that time is a line and not a circle. It was common in pagan antiquity to think, as the characters in Peter Pan and Battlestar Galactica think: “All this has happened before and it will all happen again.” Pagan antiquity learned well the lesson of the crops and seasons: that time had a cyclical quality. But it took supernatural revelation for the Jews to conceive of history as going somewhere and having, therefore, a beginning, middle, and end. Yes, there are the circling “times and seasons” as the Jews understood. But the great wheel of history was not just spinning in a void, idiotically repeating itself. Instead, for the ancient Jew, history did not so much repeat as rhyme. Certain themes come up again and again in the Old Testament: creation, fall, redemption, fidelity (and infidelity) to the covenant, birth, death, resurrection and so forth. But the whole magillah is going somewhere. The wheel is rolling down a road and hurtling toward That Day—the great and terrible Day of the Lord when Final Judgment shall dawn and the whole universe is laid bare and renewed.

Because of this conception of history and of God’s sovereign guidance of it toward That Day, it should not be very surprising that the fourth sense of Scripture—the anagogical sense—pertains to our destiny. If the purpose of Scripture is to reveal God, then it only stands to reason that part of what is revealed will be the matter of Where We Are Going. And since the Christian revelation tells us that Christ is not only Where We Are Going but The Way to Get There, it therefore naturally follows that the Church will mine Scripture for imagery about our destiny in Him.

Jesus Himself is the principal reason for this because He is the source of the insistence that our obedience or disobedience to Him will have immense and eternal consequences. A word, a cup of water, a seemingly minor thing done or not done can spell the difference between everlasting ecstasy or unending horror, loss, and pain. To be sure, the Old Testament prophets announce huge and dreadful themes of choice and destiny for Israel (“Multitudes! Multitudes in the Valley of Decision!”). But the Old Testament has only a dim idea of the contours of the afterlife. Early Old Testament literature seems only to have a notion of the grave as a dim pit filled with shadows. As late as Ecclesiastes, we still find Old Testament writers who basically have no notion of eternal life. It is not till late in the Old Testament period that something like a faith in the resurrection begins to be clearly articulated. And it is not until Christ reveals it that we are clearly informed that the stake for which we are playing—have always been playing—is nothing less than Heaven or Hell.

And so the early Church looks back at the Old Testament texts and sees them with new eyes. Earthly things take on an eternal significance in the stark light of the gospel. John, looking at Jerusalem, realizes that it signifies not simply a Jebusite citadel that David was lucky enough to conquer, but the eternal Zion, the New Jerusalem, the Bride come down out of Heaven, the homeland we’ve all been seeking ever since Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees 2,000 years before and went in search of the true God and His promise. Marriage stops being just Ralph and Alice and the bills and kids and is revealed as a token of the Cosmic Marriage of Christ and the Bride—a tiny foretaste of Heaven. The universe turns upside down and God is no longer a projection on the big screen of the universe called “Zeus” or “Odin”. Instead, your dad with his bad breath, funny stories from the army, fishing hat, and cubicle job becomes a dim reflection of the Father “from whom all fatherhood on earth takes its name” (Ephesians 3:15). The story of Israel becomes littered with signs and hints from the God who has led Israel a merry chase through the centuries to the moment where He took human flesh and conquered death itself, thereby opening the stunning possibility that we can share in that conquest and quite literally live forever in a whole new creation.

Because of the Risen Christ, the New Testament writers and their disciples come to regard every detail of the Old Testament as fraught with possibilities since they now know it was all leading up to Him. Signs and portents of our destiny peep out everywhere in the Hebrew Scriptures. The heroes of old we thought were dead are all around us in the cloud of witnesses. The Tabernacle bears testimony to our entry into the true Tabernacle which is Heaven. The accursed valley of Hinnom (where Manasseh sacrificed children to Moloch) becomes, not merely a nasty piece of real estate, but a sign of the destiny awaiting all those who freely refuse the life of God: Gehenna. Hell. Where their worm dieth not and their fire is not quenched.

The curious thing about the anagogical sense of Scripture is the “now and not yet” quality of it. When Lazarus dies, Jesus reassures Martha that her brother will rise. Martha dutifully and faithfully parrots the common Jewish piety of her time: “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day." Christians today often say something similar about Heaven and all that stuff in a certain tone of voice, but then return to “reality” with a sort of jerk and resume the worries about peak oil, the economy, and all the other “real” stuff that is hermetically sealed off from religious stuff like the resurrection.

Jesus barges into history and rudely announces to Martha that the Last Day is standing in her parlor and the Apocalypse is right here, talking to her. Because that is what “I am the Resurrection and the Life” means. He is where history is going. He’s the Omega. And to back it up, He raises Lazarus from the grave in a temporary resuscitation and then goes off to conquer death with a glorious resurrection that the New Testament writers will spend their lives trying (and failing) to describe in words.

So the New Testament will instead ransack the Old for images of it, because their Risen Lord has assured them that He is hidden there and that everything they have read all these years was actually about Him. He is the Sabbath of God in the ancient story of Creation. He is the Second Adam and His Bride the New Eve. The baptism He offers is what the Flood was all about and the Church is the real Ark. He is the Promised Land Abraham sought, the true Melchizedek offering the real sacrifice of bread and wine, the Lamb Moses sacrificed, the Heavenly Manna, our Captain Joshua Who conquers the Canaanites who are the Seven Deadly Sins. He is the true Son of David building the true Temple that is His body so that we can go to the Heavenly Zion and worship Him without fear. The Song of Songs is His wedding ode. He is the One the prophets await (even if they didn’t know it) to judge the world and separate the sheep from the goats according to their works.

So when we read the Old Testament, we aren’t just seeing things when we see foreshadows of our heavenly reward in the tales of humility exalted, virtue rewarded, wickedness punished, and pride cast down and weakness strengthened by mercy. In these little pictures, from Abraham’s offering of Isaac, to Jacob’s purgatorial transformation from lying jerk to humble man, to the fall of Saul and the rise of David, to the thousand other tales the Old Testament has to tell, we are given images that throw shadows and reflections that reach all the way to eternity. Crowns become tokens of heaven, thorns of purgatory, ignominious death a dark warning of the Second Death awaiting the impenitent.

In the end, it’s where we are going that ultimately matters.
 
 
Originally posted at Catholic Exchange. Used with author's permission.
(Image credit: Class Connection)